The products coming from the United States have become an integral part of the daily life of the Germans, from gasoline through iPhone phones, to the online retailers and broadcasting services.
However, an opinion poll revealed that more than half of people in Germany no longer want to buy American goods in the event of a dispute over customs duties.
When they were asked if they could imagine continuing to buy products from the United States in light of the conflict over customs duties, he answered 53% of more than two thousand participants in the survey with “certainly not” or “no most likely”.
48% of those who intend to boycott it will deliberately do so for political reasons.
Moreover, many Germans (44%) are not ready to pay higher prices for American products in the context of the customs duties.
On the other hand, the poll conducted by the “Ugov” institute to measure opinion indicators showed that 9% of the participants stated that they are planning “certainly” to continue to buy American products, while 25% of others said they were “probably” they will continue to do so.
However, 34% of those determined to buy American products said they could not identify the products that come from the United States in particular.
22% of this group believes that the boycott by individual consumers is useless.
About a quarter of the poll participants are still able to imagine their holidays in the United States, while this has excluded 37% or considered it unlikely, and they also attributed this primarily to political reasons.
The full boycott of American companies does not only mean rejecting American products, but also abandoning the use of the “Google” search engine, broadcasting on “Instagram”, sending messages on “WhatsApp” or watching movies on “Netflix” or requesting products via “Amazon”.
The poll did not resolve whether the Germans were ready to do this or not.
Earlier, a report in the New York Times stated that US President Donald Trump’s insistence on continuing policies exposing the European economy to danger pushes more Europeans to boycott American goods to express their strong frustration with the American administration’s dealings with the old allies.
In a new movement, US President Donald Trump announced the day before yesterday, Wednesday, the imposition of customs duties by 25% on all car imports and spare parts to the United States, starting from next April, to be permanent.
It is a decision that German counselor Olaf Schultz considered “wrong”, and said that Trump chose a path that would only result in two losers.
Government officials said that Germany and the European Union will defend free trade as a basis for their prosperity, as the European Commission was assigned to manage this process.
